Susan wound up spending the rest of the afternoon with Cody and Jan, helping out with the work on the apartment as they talked about family, and she told them some stories about being in China. Although Susan was more solid than the willowy Jan, they managed to come up with some clothes that would allow her to not worry about getting her good clothes messed up.

Over the course of the afternoon, she came to agree with Cody – this was going to be the best apartment in the building, and Susan thought it would be a comfortable place to live. It seemed a little pointless to use some of the junky student-suitable furniture Cody and Jan had earmarked for the place, even though there was no way of telling how long she would be here. She couldn’t imagine it would be more than a year, perhaps two at the most. In the end she decided that she’d use what was provided and perhaps replace some of the more objectionable pieces as she got to it.

Susan was a woman who had learned to travel light the hard way. She’d managed to get through two years in China on eighty pounds of checked luggage, a heavy carry-on, and then some items she really needed bought locally at minimal price. That meant she didn’t want to accumulate furniture here at Southern, since she expected to be moving again, and she was hoping it would involve another luggage limit.

Still, since she was here, there was no reason to be excessively Spartan, either. This was going to be a considerably roomier and nicer apartment than the one she and Theo had sometimes shared on the campus of Sichuan University, so she figured she might as well be comfortable. There were things sitting up in Spearfish Lake that would go a long way toward making this a lot more habitable place than the one she’d had in Chengdu, as well as clothes that would allow her a much bigger selection of things to wear, too. And, since she was now making pretty good money, there was no reason she couldn’t refresh her wardrobe a bit in the process.

The best part about spending the afternoon and then the evening with Cody and Jan was that she got to know Jan quite a bit better than she’d managed in the past. Prior to today she’d only met Jan briefly at family gatherings and never had much time to talk to her.

Jan was a quiet girl, though if she had an opinion she stated it articulately. Susan noted that Jan was rather deferential to Cody, and that he treated her with a lot of respect, too. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but there was something a she couldn’t quite see in the relationship the two had – but whatever it was, it worked. It seemed rather different from the relationship she’d had with Theo, and the one with Mizuki; they’d occupied the same space, the same bed – although only part of the time with Mizuki – but they’d always been two individuals going in two different directions. Cody and Jan seemed to be a team. Susan couldn’t imagine herself being that close to someone; at least she’d never managed it so far.

Eventually they finished what they could do for the day. Susan offered to take Cody and Jan out for dinner. Jan said that she’d been thinking of making stuffed peppers, but that after a long day of painting, going out sounded just fine to her, and Cody agreed. It didn’t take them long to get cleaned up enough to go to a family restaurant there in Hawthorne. Susan noticed that when Jan had her long black hair hanging loose she resembled Cody’s mother a little, especially the hair style. She wondered a little where that came from, but said nothing. In any case, Jan was a very nice-looking woman when she made even half an attempt at it, if a little on the thin side in Susan’s opinion.

Once again, Susan would have liked to know a little of the story behind the story of the two, but realized asking would be considered prying. It was clear that such things were very private between the two of them. In any case, they made for a good-looking, intelligent, cheerful, and friendly couple, if a bit on the reserved side.

The evening was spent with a little more catching up and stories about China. Cody and Jan had no extra space in their own apartment, and the one they’d been working on all afternoon was uninhabitable, but the other two apartments in the building were vacant at the moment. Jan found enough bedding for Susan to use one of them, the same one she and Mizuki had been in for their senior year.

When morning came it was time to get back with the program. Susan dressed as nicely as she could – she only had limited clothing with her – and headed back over to Human Resources in T-Hall. A little to her surprise Dr. Thompson had already cleared the way for her and nobody seemed to blink an eye at her filling a brand-new position. Surprisingly enough there was quite a bit of actual paper to sign; probably government requirements, Susan suspected, since Southern prided itself on being as electronic and digital as possible.

It took more than few minutes to finish up in Human Resources. She still had several questions about her new job and what to do next, and she realized the only thing she could do was ask Dr. Thompson about them. She had no idea if he might be busy so decided to find his secretary and ask for an appointment.

She went up the stairs to Dr. Thompson’s office to find that his secretary wasn’t there again. The appearance of her desk was some indication that she was around somewhere. Since his office door was open once again, Susan knocked on his door post lightly and asked, “Dr. Thompson, do you have a moment for me?”

“I thought I told you to call me Mark,” he grinned. “You’re not a student anymore, Susan, and you’re going to have to change your thinking a little.”

“I suppose, but yesterday it happened to strike me that I also needed to work on thinking about how an incoming freshman is going to react to this place. I mean, I’ve been in that position, but it’s been a while.”

“You weren’t exactly the average incoming freshman either,” he smiled. “You always seemed a little more mature than the rest of the kids of your age group. But you have a point. Did everything go all right with Human Resources?”

“Much better than I expected,” she said. “I just had a couple of quick questions for you, and then I’ll be heading home to pack up to move down here.”

“Did you find a place to stay?”

“Yes, in the apartment building I used to own. I sold it to some relatives of mine, and they happened to have an apartment open. It’s very close to campus, which is one of the reasons I liked it there.”

“Who are they?”

“Cody and Jan Archer.”

Dr. Thompson frowned for a moment, then brightened. “Oh, yes, the young police officer who’s pre-law. They seem to be a nice enough young couple, even though he has been the focus of some differences of opinion.”

“What might that be about?”

“I’m not very happy about the idea of having guns on campus,” Dr. Thompson replied. “I’d just as soon have an outright ban on them if I could. However, the police department here in town insists that they have a right to be armed on campus. Since Archer works part-time as an officer for the local department he falls in a gray area, especially when he’s out of uniform. I’d really rather he didn’t go armed on campus, but I can’t prevent it.”

“I don’t know if he carries a gun on campus when he’s out of uniform,” Susan replied. “We didn’t talk about it last night. I do know that he’s very respectful of what a gun can do and has the experience to know. I also know he’s about as dead a shot with a pistol as a person can be and not be on the Olympic team. You don’t get that way being casual or careless with firearms.”

“Maybe you’re right, at least in his case” he replied. “I don’t like it and I think it’s unwarranted. Perhaps not for him, but it sets a bad precedent. He may be all right, but what about the next cop? Believe me, I’ve seen lots of dumb, arrogant cops who shouldn’t be armed with a matchstick, enough of that type to hold me for several lifetimes.”

“Mark, this isn’t the sixties, and you’re not leading student protests anymore. You’re trying to prevent them by being proactive.”

“I suppose that’s affected my attitude a little,” he smiled. “This isn’t going to turn into an ombudsman issue, is it?”

“Not unless you make it one,” she smiled. “Believe me, Mark, this isn’t China. There I often saw soldiers carrying AK-47s around campus, and no one’s even sure whether they’re part of campus security or what. The heck of it is that most of them seem to be pretty dumb, and no one knows what they’re thinking or what they’re going to do.”

“That had to be pretty scary.”

“Well, I saw enough of them that I got sort of used to it,” she sighed. “In contemplating it, I’m not sure it’s all bad. It helps to make the campus there pretty safe, even though it doesn’t look like it. I can now compare that to here, where campus security had always struck me as being on the light side.”

“This is Hawthorne, not Chengdu,” he pointed out, “and it’s a rather small town as opposed to being a rather large and crowded city.”

“Very true. A girl I knew casually in the Peace Corps had an apartment in the Tibetan district. There’s ethnic tension there, and occasionally rioting over it, and it was very scary for her. Though this is Hawthorne and things are very different, the situation in this country is not what it used to be. You may be right about not wanting to have heavy security, but I just hope it doesn’t rise up to bite us.”

“I don’t think it will, and I hope your worries prove to be unfounded. But we’ve gotten off on a tangent. What can I do for you today?”

“A couple of questions. First, I know we talked about a broad range of potential duties yesterday, but I hardly know where to start.”

“Since we’ve still got a few weeks until classes start, the first thing you need to do is to narrow that range a little and develop potential job descriptions,” he told her. “I think developing an action plan about how to handle the ombudsman issue and help incoming freshmen get oriented to this place should be near the top of the list. You should review the existing orientation plan and make suggestions about it, and probably lend a hand here and there where you can.”

“It’ll be good that I have a couple of weeks to get my feet on the ground,” she replied. “I’d think the international issues have to take a back seat to those issues.”

“Yes, but don’t put them too far on the back burner. They’re going to be important in the long run, and developing an action plan on both issues needs to be done, even if it’s not a primary issue.”

“All right, that gives me some guidance on that. Let me think about it and work on it for a few days and then we can review where I’m going. Have you made any progress on an office for me?”

“No, I haven’t started yet, and that’s something I need to get rolling today. Right at the moment I’m thinking about moving public relations to the office across the hall and moving you into that office, but I haven’t totally made my mind up yet. I know there’s an empty desk or two in the Dean of Students’ office, but I don’t want you in there even temporarily, because I don’t want people down there to get the idea that you are subordinate to them. You’re not going to be, but the Dean of Students is new here and doesn’t appear to understand a number of the facts about how this place works. What’s worse, he appears as something of an empire builder. That means he’ll try to sweep you up if he can. My intent for now is to have you reporting directly to me. If this position works out the way I hope, you may be locking horns with him more than you will with me, so for the sake of the ombudsman function, I think we need to try to keep you independent, at least for now.”

“It strikes me that a lot of the student orientation part of the program is going to fall in his area of responsibility.”

“Very true, and we’ll have a meeting to iron out some of those issues pretty soon. I’ll try to have a word with him and try to make my position clear to him. He’s new enough here that he hasn’t seen this place operating while a term is in session, so he’s going to need some training in that, too. It’s part of what makes the ombudsman position so important, in that you will have to be something of a counterbalance to him.”

Susan shook her head. “It sounds like a bad case of office politics breaking out.”

“Maybe not all that bad. Most new administrators we get here need some breaking in on how we do things. You’re different in that you were a student here in the early days, so you understand how we do things. I wish we could have more graduates of Southern on the staff, but we are still too new.”

“I see your point,” she smiled.

“At least he doesn’t have any college administrative experience, so that’s a point in his favor. He’s been the superintendent of a couple of small public school districts, so at least he won’t be carrying experience from other colleges with him. You know what I mean, doing something in a certain way because that’s how it’s done elsewhere. The whole point of this place, in my mind, is to be different because the way things have been done elsewhere often haven’t worked out. Anyway, as I said I don’t want him to even get the notion that you’re subordinate to him in any way. It may come down to putting you in the conference room or something for a few days until we can get things shuffled around.”

“I’ve done a great deal of work with my laptop over in the snack bar,” she smiled. “I can do it again if I have to.”

“I’ve heard dumber ideas,” he laughed. “In fact, it strikes me as a pretty good place for the ombudsman, although you’ve got other duties where a regular office would be more appropriate.”

“Maybe I can set up over there on regular hours,” she replied. It wasn’t the dumbest idea she’d ever heard Dr. Thompson come up with. He usually came up with good ones, but she knew she’d have to be careful since once in a while he’d boot it badly. That was pretty rare, though.

“Might be something to think about,” he replied in a supporting tone. “How soon do you think you can get started?”

“Fairly soon, I think. It could be as early as the first of the week, but there are a couple of full driving days involved and I’m not sure how long it’s going to take me to arrange things at home. It could be a day, and it could be three. Then I have to set up housekeeping here, too.”

“Take your time, but not too long. We need to get your student relations functions defined and up and running before we see students coming in for the fall term.”

“Even at worst, I don’t think it should take a week,” she said. “I’ll be heading home as soon as we’re done here, and I don’t have anything else for you at the moment. However, after that much driving I’m sure I’ll have thought of some questions for when I get back.”

“Oh, I’m sure you will. Susan, let me give you a piece of advice I learned many years ago, and you’re in the perfect position to take advantage of it: expand into the power gap.”

“What do … oh, I see. You’re saying we’re in an area that is ill-defined at present, and I need to make my own territory out of it.”

“That’s a pretty good way to put it. There are some places where you may have to step on some toes, but there are also some places with functions that people will be glad to have out of their hair. You’ll have to research the territory and do it on the fly, but the more I think about this the more I think it’s important. Feel free to come to me for help on this.”

“I’m sure I will, and that strikes me as good advice all the way around. I’m sure it will give me food for thought as I’m driving home.”

There were a couple more platitudes about having a safe trip and the like, and then Susan was on her way with much to think about. Dr. Thompson was very skilled at planting such ideas in people’s heads, and it may have been what she liked best about the man. He had made it clear that she was going to be facing some issues with the Dean of Students, but at least she felt she had Dr. Thompson on her side, which could count for a lot around Southern.

Still, their talk had made her a little curious about the man, enough so that she stopped at the staff directory on the main floor to see if she could figure out his name. It only took a moment before she saw, “Dean of Students – Charles deRidder.” There was no indication of a PhD as there were for other staff members.

It couldn’t be, she thought. This is a big country … but deRidder wasn’t a common name, and Dr. Thompson had said he’d been superintendent of two small school districts …

If it was the same man, deRidder had done a small favor of a sort for her years before. After Susan had returned from her exchange student year in her junior year of high school, she’d been greeted with the news that the school superintendent had changed the rules while she’d been gone, and she would have to face two more years at Spearfish Lake High School rather than just the one planned. She had no intention of wasting two years taking classes like art appreciation and weight lifting, so she’d taken her Abitur, her German equivalent of a diploma, and registered at Riverside Community College near her home. Although it had meant her having to attend college at the combination of Riverside and Southern for five years – six if you counted the year in Japan – it had been a worthwhile experience, and meeting Mizuki at Riverside had been just an extra.

The old superintendent had been fired, and deRidder hired to replace him. Partly through his efforts and those of the retiring high school principal she’d received her American high school diploma from Spearfish Lake as a result, even though she’d only attended a few minutes of classes there in her last two years of school.

She hadn’t heard a great deal about him after that, but recalled her parents talking about the fact that deRidder had gotten into trouble with the school board while she’d been in China. The retired high school principal, Harold Hekkinan, had been called out of retirement to replace him. She didn’t know anything more than that, and hadn’t cared. Now it might be a good idea if she knew more about him, and she knew how to find out. It was just one more thing to think about as she drove home, she thought, not that she wouldn’t have plenty of other things to occupy her.

If anything, this new job at Southern seemed like even more of a dream to Susan as she got in the car and started for Spearfish Lake. She’d never expected to be offered a job at the school itself when she stopped off in Hawthorne, and certainly not one quite like this. It could be a big job, depending on how it was defined and how it developed. It still seemed very fuzzy to her, but there were ideas kicking around in her mind about things she wanted to do, and things she needed to find out to be able to do them.

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